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California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

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Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#111

Post by thebradbain »

mbesto wrote: post #71
BitwiseFool wrote: post #6

"The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it." - Jeff Bezos This is a tricky article because I can tell it's using the term 'exodus' and 'myth' differently than I would. It's abundantly clear there is a lot of migration out of California. Just ask Texans, Coloradans, and Idahoans.

> It's abundantly clear there is a lot of migration out of California. Just ask Texans, Coloradans, and Idahoans. Currently residing in Texas for 2.5 years now, moved from California. Yes, I anecdotally meet "a lot" of fellow NY/CA residents moving here. I also anecdotally have noticed that Whole Foods sells lots of local texan brewery beers. Are Texan local breweries on the rise in popularity or is it just that my p…

This is very funny to read, because I had the exact opposite journey as you.

I love California so much that I buckled the popular media narrative and moved _from_ Texas _to_ California. Funnily enough, people talk about the California-to-Texas pipeline as if it's a new thing, but it's been an observed phenomenon since at least 2005, and it's a lot smaller than the media would have you think (usually net ~40k year leave CA for TX, with about 80k going to Texas and 40k coming from Texas). That is 0.1% migration, and seemingly negligible in either direction.

https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2021/03/03/californians-mo...

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#112

Post by imtringued »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #6

"The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it." - Jeff Bezos This is a tricky article because I can tell it's using the term 'exodus' and 'myth' differently than I would. It's abundantly clear there is a lot of migration out of California. Just ask Texans, Coloradans, and Idahoans.

I have collected a list of birth dates of mothers and most of them are not the same age as my mother.

The data must be wrong and all mothers must be as old as my mother.

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#113

Post by chrisco255 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #70
Cookingboy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal data is still data, just not conclusive data. But there is a Chinese saying "无风不起浪", which roughly translates to “If there are waves on the water, there must be wind somewhere". We are hearing a ton of these anecdotal stories very recently about Californians moving to other states, especially wealthy, higher income individuals. My gut feeling is that there is some material shift behind it and our systematic…

> We are hearing a ton of these anecdotal stories very recently about Californians moving to other states, especially wealthy, higher income individuals. We know matches a political narrative (anti-liberal, anti-tax) and that the right, such as on Fox News, has long pushed it about CA. That would explain why you hear it so much. EDIT: I'm trying to avoid discussing the politics of it on HN, but ignoring the narrative…

This is objectively true: people are leaving California for high cost of living, insane real estate prices, and dysfunctional state politics. California is not the epitome of the American dream of "heading west" to make it big that it once was. And tech workers increasingly have mobility. Just the other day there was a top story on HN about a small town in Idaho that has become unaffordable because of outflows to there and lots of anecdotes about similar things happening in other cities around the country. The great opportunity that California once was has dried up, just like the reservoirs.

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#114

Post by wolverine876 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #113
wolverine876 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are hearing a ton of these anecdotal stories very recently about Californians moving to other states, especially wealthy, higher income individuals. We know matches a political narrative (anti-liberal, anti-tax) and that the right, such as on Fox News, has long pushed it about CA. That would explain why you hear it so much. EDIT: I'm trying to avoid discussing the politics of it on HN, but ignoring the narrative…

This is objectively true: people are leaving California for high cost of living, insane real estate prices, and dysfunctional state politics. California is not the epitome of the American dream of "heading west" to make it big that it once was. And tech workers increasingly have mobility. Just the other day there was a top story on HN about a small town in Idaho that has become unaffordable because of outflows to the…

> objectively true

Based on what? Lots of people repeating something - we of the Internet age know better than our predecessors - isn't evidence of anything but 'viral' narrative, and raises no real question other than 'where did it come from?'

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#115

Post by chrisco255 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #74
hpoe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll throw in my 2 cents that I can confirm the anecdote. I just moved to a small town in Idaho because my wife was from there. We found our house because several new developments are going up. As I've been chatting with some people at church* I was told that about 1/3 of the people that attend have moved to our little town in Idaho from Southern California in the past 2 years or so. That might not seem like much, bu…

Idaho is trendy with Californians, fwiw.

So is anywhere but California, apparently.

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#116

Post by CameronNemo »

walkedaway wrote: post #107
kibwen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume this is getting downvoted because of its tone, but the sentiment is correct. The statement is nonsense. There can be wisdom in attempting to understand why anecdotes disagree with data, but the vast majority of the time it is simply a combination of selection bias and the human tendency to want to believe things that support your own worldview.

> the vast majority of the time it is simply a combination of selection bias and the human tendency to want to believe things that support your own worldview Citation needed. Given Jeff Bezos success in growing a business from scratch, this is clearly one of his secrets and why "Are right, A Lot" is an Amazon leadership principle. I'm always surprised that people are so easy to dismiss insights from successful people…

Just because Bezos knew how to create a successful business, does not make him a successful person.

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#117

Post by chrisco255 »

haswell wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #4

Careful framing of the purported “myth” is critical: > For one, while residents are moving out of state, they are not doing so at "unusual rates." Similarly, the research found no evidence of "millionaire flight" from California and notes that the state continues to attract as much venture capital as all other U.S. states combined, despite the recent exodus of Hewlett-Packard and Oracle. Who is saying California is u…

> Who is saying California is unattractive for rich people and venture capital? One potential source: this is a popular conservative talking point about the dangers of liberal government, and the "exodus" is often used as evidence to justify those talking points. "See, just look at California, they implemented , and everyone is leaving the state". This kind of viewpoint is rampant on places like /r/conservative, and…

In a complex state with millions of people and perspectives, is it not possible that a large group of people from California do feel that way and do express those views when they move to other states?

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#118

Post by wolverine876 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #115
wolverine876 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idaho is trendy with Californians, fwiw.

So is anywhere but California, apparently.

Apparently not. For example, of people leaving San Francisco:

72% moved elsewhere in the Bay area

~20% moved elsewhere in California

The next most popular destination was Washington state, the majority going to Seattle.

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Only-one-U-S-city-...

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#119

Post by xwdv »

thebradbain wrote: post #95
almost_usual wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who are in between jobs and thinking of moving to where they grew up I hear the opposite, people cannot afford where they grew up. Most people from the Bay Area aren’t working high paying tech jobs. > I guess in real life I just hear more people talk about the general cost of living argument than a than the specific anti-tech one. Anti-tech sentiment peaked in the early 2010s. Tech buses stopped being vandalized an…

> Anti-tech sentiment peaked in the early 2010s. Tech buses stopped being vandalized and the “die techie scum” thing mostly went away after 2015. While we're comparing anecdotal evidence, I live in Los Angeles and count among my peers many who work in the Hollywood/Media industry. I can assure you the general sentiment among them toward Big Tech is overwhelmingly negative. I work in tech (albeit not a large company)…

A lot of this negative big tech sentiment isn’t backed by anything rational, it’s the same middle school or high school mentality of beating up nerds.
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